Erasing the Past: The Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina

András J. Riedlmayer · *Review of Middle East Studies* 29(1), Cambridge University Press, 1994; DOI: 10.1017/S0026318400030418

tlte-cite:jaffna-1981-riedlmayer-1994

Editorial gloss

Riedlmayer — the principal documentation scholar for the Sarajevo National Library's August 1992 destruction — establishes the conceptual vocabulary of "memoricide" (Mirko Grmek's term) for the systematic erasure of cultural monuments associated with a targeted ethnic group. The Sarajevo burning (350,000 books, 1.5 million items) is the most direct structural parallel to Jaffna, both in its targeting of a national library as an ethnic-identity symbol and in state complicity. Essential comparative source.

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case suppression
jaffna library 1981
cultural destruction

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